CFP: Serafino Aquilano Between Poetry and Music, Rome, 2-5 Dec 2024
AMS-Announce
Serafino Aquilano (1466-1500), the greatest exponent of fifteenth-century Italian courtly poetry, is enjoying renewed success in the field of historical-literary studies, thanks in large part to the recent complete critical editions of his works edited by Antonio Rossi. Since his was a repertoire conceived and at least initially circulated in sung form, Serafino's exceptional fame in his time was also due to his extraordinary ability as a composer and performer. The historical understanding of these elements, however, is hampered by the lack of extant musical settings that can be ascribed to him with certainty. The contemporary compositions that accompany his rhymes are in fact anonymous or attributed to other composers (among them Marchetto Cara, Alessandro Mantovano, Giacomo Fogliano and Heinrich Isaac). In addition to this, there persists in current research a widespread tendency to treat separately the verbal and sonic aspects of poetry for music (which Serafino and his audience experienced as inseparable), combined with a lack of attention to the specific cultural and political contexts in which Serafino and his colleagues found themselves operating.
The international conference "Serafino Aquilano Between Poetry and Music: New Research Perspectives" aims to extend the frontier of studies on Serafino and his time through the contribution of new sources and more fruitful interdisciplinary approaches around – but not limited to – the following topics:
• L'Aquila, Abruzzo, and the Neapolitan Regno: the background of Serafino's youth
• City, court, and academy: Serafino's professional venues
• Serafino as a courtier
• Serafino as poet between lyric tradition and courtly poetry
• Serafino and imitation: models and rivals
• Serafino: what music?
• Serafino and his colleagues as performers
• Canterini and cantimpanca between orality and writing
• Serafino and the Renaissance theater
• Nature and artifice
• The construction of the 'myth' of Serafino (Colocci, Calmeta, Achillini and the Collettanee)
• Serafino's posthumous fortune in Italy and abroad (with particular regard to France, Spain and England)
• Serafinian iconography
Scholars interested in participating are asked to send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short CV to the email address convegno.serafinoaquilano -at- gmail.com no later than April 10, 2024. The languages admitted to the conference are Italian, English, French and Spanish.
